Publications

Summary

SUMMARY: One book and twenty-three peer-reviewed published papers, including 14 first and 1 last author paper. With recent papers accepted in Nature Communications and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. I am also a regular contributor to society magazines such as The Biologist (Royal Society of Biology) and Freshwater News (Freshwater Biological Association), alongside other scientific magazines and news pieces.

Under Review

Blackman RC, Weiss B & Altermatt F. Unpicking ecosystem function across space and time – In review

PEER-REVIEWED Published JOURNAL ARTICLES

Blackman RC, Brantschen J, Bossart R, Carraro L, Cereghetti E, Couton M, Keck F, Kirschner D, Perrelet K, Zhang Y & Altermatt F. Environmental DNA: the next chapter – Molecular Ecology (early view)

Carraro L, Blackman RC & Altermatt F. (2023) Modelling eDNA transport in river networks reveals highly resolved spatio-temporal patters of freshwater biodiversity. Scientific Reports 13(1), 8854. (Available here)

Blackman RC*, Walser JC*, Brantschen J, Rüber L, Seehausen, O & Altermatt F. General principles for assignments of communities from eDNA: Open versus closed taxonomic databases. Environmental DNA (early view, available here) *joint first author

Blackman RC, Ho H-C, Walser J-C and Altermatt F. (2022) Spatio-temporal patterns of multi-trophic biodiversity and food-web characteristics across a river catchment. Communications Biology, 5:259 (Available here)

Keck K*, Blackman RC*, Bossart R, Brantschen J, Couton M, Hürlemann S, Kirschner D, Locher N, Zhang H and Altermatt F. (2022) Meta-analysis shows both congruence and complementarity of DNA metabarcoding to traditional methods for biological community assessment (Molecular Ecology, early view available here) *joint first author

Blackman RC, Brantschen J, Walser JC, Wuethrich R & Altermatt F. (2022) Surveillance monitoring of invasive non-native species in Switzerland: National and catchment scale application. (River Research and Applications early view available here)

Brantschen J, Blackman RC, Walser J-C, Altermatt F. (2021) Environmental DNA gives comparable results to morphology-based indices of macroinvertebrates in a large-scale ecological assessment. PLOSONE, 16(9): e0257510. (Article available in full here)

Blackman RC, Altermatt F, Foulquier A, Lefebure T, Gauthier M, Bouchez A, Stubbington R, Weigand A, Leese F & Datry T. (2021) Unlocking our understanding of intermittent and ephemeral rivers with genomic tools. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 19:10, 574-583.(Article available here Early view)

Blackman RC, Osathanunku M, Brantschen J, Di Muri C, Harper L, Mächler E, Hänfling B & Altermatt F.  (2021) Mapping fish diversity in subtropical rivers to identify biodiversity hotspots. Scientific Reports, 11: 10375 (Article available in full here) 

Thalinger B, Deiner K, Harper L, Rees HC, Blackman RC, Sint D, Traugott M, Goldberg CS & Bruce K. (2021) A validation scale to determine the readiness of environmental DNA assays for routine species monitoring. Environmental DNA, 3:4, 823-836. (Article available in full here) 

Blackman RC, Ling KKS., Harper LR, Shum P, Hänfling B & Lawson-Handley L. (2020) Environmental DNA consistently outperforms established methods for detection of quagga mussels, Dreissena rostriformis bugensis in flowing water. Ecology and Evolution, 10:23, 13248-13259 (Article available in full here) 

Harper L, Lawson Handley L, Sayer C, Read D, Benucci M, Blackman RC, Hill M, & Hänfling B. (2020) Assessing the impact of the threatened crucian carp (Carassius carassius) on pond invertebrate diversity - a comparison of conventional and molecular tools. Molecular Ecology, 30:13, 3252-3269 (Article available in full here)

Blackman RC, Bruder A, Burdon FJ, Convey P, Funk WC, Jähnig SC, Kishe MA, Moretti M, Natugonza V, Pawlowski J, Stubbington R, Zhang X, Seehausen O and Altermatt F (2020) A meeting framework for inclusive and sustainable science. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 4, 668–671. (Article available in full here, for further information on the ABCD format visit our website here). 

Blackman RC, Benucci M, Donnelly R, Hänfling B, Harper LR, Sellers GS. and Lawson Handley L. (2020) Simple, sensitive and species-specific assays for detecting quagga and zebra mussels (Dreissena rostriformis bugensis and D. polymorpha) using environmental DNA. Management of Biological Invasions, 11(2) (Available in full here).

Altermatt F, Little CJ, Mächler E, Wang S, Zhang X and Blackman RC (2020) Uncovering the complete biodiversity structure in spatial networks – the example of riverine systems. Oikos, 129:1 (Article available in full here)

Blackman RC, Mächler E, Altermatt F, Arnold A, Beja P, Boets P, Egeter B, Elbrecht V, Filipe A, Jones JI, Macher J, Majaneva M, Martins F, Múrria, Meissner K, Pawlowski J, Schmidt Yáñez P, Zizka V, Leese F, Price B and Deiner K (2019) Advancing the use of molecular methods for routine freshwater macroinvertebrate biomonitoring – the need for calibration experiments. Metabarcoding and Metagenomics, 3 (Article available in full here)

Lawson Handley L, Read DS, Winfield IJ, Kimbell H, Johnson H, Li J, Hahn C, Blackman RC, Wilcox R, Donnelly R, Szitenberg A and Hänfling B (2019) Temporal and spatial variation in distribution of fish environmental DNA in Engand’s largest lake. Environmental DNA, 1:1 26-39 (Article available in full here)

Harper L, Griffiths N, Lawson Handley L, Sayer CD, Read DS, Harper KJ, Blackman RC, Li J and Hänfling B (2019) Development and factors influencing application of environmental DNA surveillance for the threatened crucian carp (Carassius carassius) Freshwater Biology; 64:1, 93-107. (Article available in full here)

Blackman RC, Hänfling B and Lawson-Handley L (2018) The use of environmental DNA as an early warning tool in the detection of new freshwater invasive species. CAB Reviews 12, 010, 1-15

Blackman RC, Constable D, Hahn C, Sheard AM, Durkota J, Hänfling B, Handley LL (2017) Detection of a new non-native freshwater species by DNA metabarcoding of environmental samples—first record of Gammarus fossarum in the UK. Aquatic Invasions 12. (Article available in full here)

Hanfling B, Handley LL, Read DS, Hahn C, Li J, Nichols P, Blackman RC, Oliver A and Winfield I (2016) Environmental DNA Metabarcoding of Lake Fish Communities Reflects Long - Term Data from Established Survey Methods. Molecular Ecology 25: 3101-3119. (Article available in full here)

Books

A practical guide to DNA-based methods for biodiversity assessment. Book, Pensoft. 1 of 5 lead authors. December 2021. Available here

Invited Seminars, Presentations and Conferences

Autumn Conservation Biology seminar series, invited speaker: Environmental DNA 101. University of Neuchatel, Switzerland. November 2023

Ecology Professionals seminar series, invited speaker: How far have we come – 10 years of eDNA. Environment Agency, UK. October 2023.

eDNA4Hydro, Scientific Exchange workshop, invited speaker: Environmental DNA: from river to lab. University of Bern. Invited expert, Switzerland, August 2023

Water for ecosystems and biodiversity workshop, Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda of the Water4All Partnership. Invited expert, Helsinki, Finland, February 2023

Intermittent rivers, ephemeral streams and genomic tools, Ecology Profession seminar series– Invited speaker, Environment Agency, UK. February 2022.

Measuring biodiversity – Invited speaker, UK DNA working group, UK. January 2022.

Understanding: How do we measure biodiversity? – Invited panellist, Trust for Sustainable Living: Partner Power Summit: Protecting Biodiversity, July 2021

Mapping fish diversity in subtropical rivers to identify biodiversity hotspots - Tweet Seminar, BES Aquatic Group Annual meeting (online), September 2021 - Highly Commended Prize

Environmental DNA applications in Swiss rivers – eDNA workshop WSL, Switzerland, June 2021 

Practical applications of eDNA for conservation of river systems – Ökologischen Kolloquium Department of Ecology, Universität Innsbruck, Austria. May 2021

Mapping fish diversity in subtropical rivers to identify biodiversity hotspots - DNAqua-net Conference 2021, March 2021 - Best ECR poster presentation

RiverDNA - Complete Biodiversity MonitoringUsing eDNA - World Biodiversity Forum, Davos, Switzerland, February 2020

An assay validation framework to compare and evaluate targeted eDNA assays for routine species monitoring - UKDNA Working Group, NHM London, January 2020

Monitoring macroinvertebrate communities with DNA methods – an update - UKDNA Working Group, NHM London, January 2020

Molecular approaches to macroinvertebrate monitoring – EnvMetaGen, CIBIO, Porto, Portugal, December 2018.

Targeting the invader - UK DNA Working Group, Salford, December 2017

How much can environmental DNA (eDNA) reflect a local macroinvertebrate community in a lotic system? - Symposium for European Freshwater Science (SEFS10), Olomouc, Czech Republic, July 2017 - Third prize for Best Oral Presentation

DNA based methods for monitoring macroinvertebrates - Environment Agency Taxonomy Specialist workshop, Shrewsbury, March 2017

A new non-native species discovered in the UK using environmental DNA (eDNA) - University of Hull Post Graduate Research Day 2017 - Best Presentation Prize

A New Non-Native species discovered in the UK using environmental DNA (eDNA) - British Ecological Society Annual Conference, Liverpool. December 2016

Metabarcoding - species detection and community assessment - UK eDNA Workshop, Edinburgh. November 2016

Environmental DNA - Target species detection - COST Action eDNA meeting - Vianden, Luxembourg, September 2016

How much can environmental DNA (eDNA) reflect a local macro-invertebrate community in a freshwater flowing habitat?                     - International Conference on Aquatic Invasive Species (ICAIS) Winnipeg, Canada. April 2016  

Other

ABCD conferences for an integrative and sustainable science - Eawag aquatic research news, April 2020

Environmental DNA: Detecting a new macroinvertebrate in the UK - Barcode Bulletin, December 2017

eDNA - looking into the future? - Freshwater Biological Association News, Spring 2016